19 Biggest Lessons From Reading 100 Books
I started reading non-fiction after hitting my rock bottom. I found people to look up to and saw that they were reading and learning constantly to better themselves. This inspired me to develop a reading and self improvement habit that I have continued for more than 10 years.
No single book has the ability to change your life. But the things you do, good or bad, over time, compound to extraordinary changes.
Here are some things that have stuck with me. (In no particular order)
1. Become interested in other people.
Once you start to see things from someone else’s view. You will have more empathy for other people. Connecting with others is what life is all about. You will not be successful in life or business without this.
2. The safe route comes with a lot of risk.
Go to college. Add to your 401k. Work a 9-5 until you are 65. This seems like the safer route. But there are a lot of risks in taking the normal path.
3. Personal development is the best way to save a relationship.
You can’t change other people. Start by reading non fictions books to discover solutions to your problems. Get your body in order. Your finances in check. Take control of your health. Start dressing nice around the house. Check in to life.
4. Feeding into sexual instincts makes you crave novelty.
Your animal self wants to mate with a variety of partners. When you reach sexual satisfaction, a cascade of events starts happening that turns you away from your partner. And make you crave novelty. If not a new partner, then some other stimulus to chase.
5. Beat procrastination by just doing the thing.
There is no answer to “How do I start?” or “What do I do next?”. You just need to clear the way for your brain to do it’s job. Open up your canvas and just begin.
6. Leaning into pain will set you free.
We are constantly running from pain and towards pleasure. In order to maintain homeostasis, your body will build tolerance and your pain/ pleasure set points will get all jacked up. Doing hard things is the only way to reset this balance.
7. Just be happy.
We can spend years seeking for answers, wanting and craving more, being unhappy with our situation. They day will never come when things are just right. Let go and just decide to be happy.
8. Take ownership of EVERYTHING.
There is no point of blaming others. To be a leader, you need to own everything. Even stuff that is not your fault.
9. Your mind is very good at getting things to happen that you want to happen.
Once you get out of your own way, you can accomplish great things. Do not underestimate your ability to figure things out.
10. Train your brain to focus by doing less.
Your ability to focus is greatly effected by your ability to let things go. Less is more in this case.
11. Set your goals over 3 months instead of yearly.
It’s almost impossible to plan effectively over a year. There are too many unknowns that can happen. Set shorter term goals and you will be able to plan down to the nitty-gritty details.
12. You can train a dog to do anything without being a dick.
A lot of people think you have to be mean to dogs in order to bend them to your will. Turns out, dogs will endure pain to get rewards. So not only is this ineffective, it’s downright bad for you and your dog. Have some compassion. Don’t be lazy. Do it the right way.
13. People have lived through some shitty situations.
Digging into history will give you some serious perspective. You don’t have to look far to see just how easy you have it. This perspective is essential.
14. You are the only one your kids can depend on. They constantly test you to make sure you will never abandon them.
Your child needs to know that you love them no matter what. Of course you love them but they do not always see it depending on how you act as a parent. Have compassion. You are on their team.
15. Religion is a plague on Humanity.
Belief is the most powerful force. Even more powerful than time. By default, people act according to their beliefs. And will do bad or stupid things without a second thought. We need to abandon this and be okay with not knowing.
16. Humans treat animals very poorly.
How do we have compassion for an insect or even plants in some cases? But we turn a blind eye on industries that experiment, torture, and kill animals with such great complexity? If you had a pet monkey, mouse, cow, chicken, pig, sheep, etc., you would bond with these animals and go through great lengths to make them happy and comfortable.
Is it cognitive dissonance? Fear of finding out the truth? Compassion is the most manly thing ever.
17. Don’t focus on what you can’t control.
We spend a great deal of energy and time worrying about the future or regretting the past. Start to filter out things that you have no control over. And lean into the things you can control. You will be much happier.
18. Do hard things to immunize yourself for when hard things happen.
We live comfortable lives. But things won’t always be that way. Probably for anyone. Find something hard to do. Or give up something you enjoy. Even just for a day. And when the time comes to face adversity, you will be a little bit more prepared then if you never left your comfort zone in the first place.
19. We may not have as much Free Will as we think.
Imagine Osama Bin Laden’s son becoming anything other than what he is. When and where you were born. Who you were raised by. And life circumstances greatly impact who you are, the way you think, and how you behave. We aren’t in as much control as we think.
But all is not lost. Understanding this will give you compassion not just for others, but for your own shortcomings as well.
If you made it this far…
Please consider giving me some feedback. I want to become a better writer and help others grow along with me. Feedback is invaluable for this goal.
Thanks for reading!
My Journey With Addiction (NSFW)
In 2010, I was facing felony charges for distribution of drugs. I was a drug addict. Hook line and sinker. But never admitted that to myself. My drug of choice? Anything I could get my hands on. Cocaine, ecstasy, weed, Xanax, Oxycontin, ciggys, alcohol, ativan, seroquil, spice, mushrooms.. You name it.
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Desperately wanting to avoid prison time, I did whatever I could to turn my life around. The potential pain in carrying on was too great to tolerate. This was my rock bottom.
I enrolled in college, started working out every day, got rid of any “friends” that wanted to continue that lifestyle.
And quitting my daily drug use?
It wasn’t a factor. I was too scared. I was willing to do anything to escape my prison sentence so I dropped them all without looking back. I was lucky. Lucky I had hit rock bottom. Lucky that everything collapsed around me. I needed a push and this was it.
Apparently the judge saw that I was making real change and I was able to avoid prison. I was slapped with a couple of felonies, fines, and drug and rehab classes.
Having felonies on my record was hard. I couldn’t get a decent job. Even Walmart was excited to hire me, but then rejected me because of my record. I knew that I had turned a new leaf. I just needed someone to see that I was changed now.
Luckily, I found a family that needed help with their special needs kid.
I worked for them for long enough to get my felonies reduced and expunged off my record.
When hard drugs turn into soft drugs.
I thought I was “drug free” because I had stopped all illegal drugs. But soon I found myself consuming copious amounts of caffeine in order to lose weight and get “Jacked”. You see, I found a passion for natural bodybuilding and Jiu-Jitsu around 2011.
I consumed endless content on how to lose body fat so I could finally get a six pack. A lot of YouTubers at the time were promoting pre-workouts like Jack3d. Which also had another stimulant called 1,3 dimethylamylamine - or DMAA. Which was banned after it had become known to be problematic.
So there I was, taking Jack3d, working out, and trying to figure out how to get a six pack. I hired the same coaches that my favorite YouTuber Matt Ogus had. 3DMuscleJourney. I got very serious with Diet and training.
When I started with 3DMuscleJourney in 2012, I had been working out for a solid year. I had gotten down to 195lbs from 215. Not a huge difference. And I had put on a good amount of Muscle in that time.
Me at 215.
Me at 195.
3DMuscleJourney taught me and guided me on how to train effectively while dieting and how to diet efficiently by tracking macros. But my preworkout and caffeine use had spiked up 1,500mg a day. I used caffeine as a substitute for food. After 12 weeks, I was down to 160lbs.
I was fit by any person’s definition. My new found glory would soon collapse as my caffeine and DMAA use caught up to me. I started having bad shoulder pain, my joints were achy and cracky, popping every time I moved. I started stretching and doing mobility exercises but the pain in my body only got worse. I was unable to sleep. I would have fits of rage followed by lows of doubt and depression.
Then, I broke. I was no longer able to exercise because of the pain. I started eating more to see if it would help my joints. I quickly gained 30lbs. Probably within only a few weeks. I ended my coaching and started to slip back towards the abyss.
That’s when I figured out that caffeine and DMAA were both a huge problem.
I had been consuming caffeine my whole life. But never thought twice about it. It was a legal substance that a kid could go buy in a vending machine. How bad could it be? Broken, I decided to quit.
I was quickly able to cut out DMAA. But every attempt at quitting caffeine left me in so much pain that I would quickly rationalize going back to it. I never made it past two weeks.
Why was this harder than quitting all of those harder drugs?
I guess decades of using a softer drug still carves out some pretty steep ravines in your reward pathway. Caffeine was my last vice. Or so I thought..
I read the book “Caffeine Blues”. This book explained that caffeine is not healthy in any way. It is a stimulant that causes your body to break down over time just like any drug. The book outlined some of the negatives associated with caffeine.
- Poor sleep, even if you didn’t consume caffeine close to bedtime.
- Joint pain from increased muscle tension.
- Poor vitamin and mineral absorption.
- Energy crashes and mood swings.
- Irritability.
- Psychosis.
- Masking negatives of caffeine with drugs and alcohol.
The list goes on. This was crazy. The book recommended tapering off of caffeine. While I was able to wean down to 300-600 most days. I couldn’t get myself to fully commit. I started to look for some help.
Maybe I needed something to give me energy and focus while I quit?
I started to look at “Nootropics” to help me focus. I tried a large variety of them.
- Noopept
- Modafinil
- Piracetam
- Aniracetam
- L-Theanine
- Phenibut
- Kratom
- Nicotine
- A large variety of other supplements.
Non of this helped me quit caffeine. I soon realized that these legal “Performance enhancers” were just drugs. With their own highs and lows. And negative effects over time. I ended up quitting all of this after a year.
It was back to the drawing board.
Around the end of 2015, I ended up doing a 3 month or so long caffeine taper. Using caffeine powder and a mg scale I bought off Amazon. The plan was slow and steady. 1-2mg per day. I didn’t want to notice my caffeine levels were dropping. After about a month under 25mg, I started feeling great.
My joints felt great, Arizona heat was more comfortable, I craved healthy food and exercise, I slept like a baby, the list goes on. I had raised my testosterone levels from 320ng/dL to 575ng/dL.
But then, just as I finally let go of caffeine. There was a surprise. A curve ball that would change my life forever.
The boy who lived…
My first child was to be born. The 24 hours in the hospital was an introduction to the lack of sleep I would face over the next few years. I caved…
One or two cups of coffee later, my son was born, and a new cycle of baby wake me up > being tired > caffeine to get me through the day > poor quality sleep > baby wake me up had begun.
I got got even more dependent on caffeine. I could no longer just take a nap whenever I wanted. I was a mess. Feeling like shit, with high stress, I also started drinking alcohol and smoking weed again. My testosterone levels plummeted down to 275ng/dL.
Great move dad..
I wanted to get healthy again. I started reading books about health, nutrition, meditation, etc. I wanted to attack this problem from multiple angles. I started eating a plant-based diet, meditating, exercising, taking ice baths, etc. I quit alcohol and weed again. Tapering my caffeine down below 100mg again.
I was starting to feel better. Even got my testosterone levels all the way up to 575ng/DL
The girl who lived..
Sorry about the Harry Potter references…
Just when I thought it was over, another curve ball to my health goals. Something that would start the lack of sleep cycle all over again.
You guessed it.. another child! This time, there was a baby girl in my house. This new baby came with new challenges. Our daughter was born with cataracts. She had to have surgery at around 3 months old to get them removed. So not only did we have to deal with the lack of sleep stress again, and boy did she excel in that area, we had to deal with putting contacts in a baby…
Imagine a grown man squeezing their fist closed. And you have to delicately open up their fist, and place a sticky note on their palm without bending the paper. And the grown man is also having a seizure at the same time. Also, you haven’t slept a quality night of sleep for weeks.
Needless to say, but I’m going to say it, our stress levels shot through the roof. We had new worries and fears about our daughter’s condition and the caffeine cycle ramped back up again. All while trying to focus on my new career in IT and raising our other child.
Testosterone Replacement Therapy
I think sometime early 2023, a friend told me he was on Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). I knew my low test levels were due to stress, caffeine use, lack of sleep, belly fat, poor eating habits, etc. But I was desperate for some edge that would help me finally quit caffeine and get healthy again.
I thought, if I can use Testosterone to help me get healthy, then I can get off of it later and not suffer any consequences.
Boy was I wrong.
TRT did give me more drive and gusto to get stuff done. It also made me work harder than my body wanted. I started getting more back pain from harder weightlifting session, I actually started doing more caffeine, and even weed again. I was like 6 years clean from weed at this point.
This made me over confident. Like I could handle anything, which led to poor decisions. I felt like a horny teenager and it made it hard to focus. I started masturbating furiously..
After 4 months stabbing myself in the ass, and draining my life essence, I decided to quit TRT cold turkey. I knew this wasn’t what I needed.
Withdrawals from TRT were bearable. I had waves of depression, lack of energy, etc. But I got through it. I’ll probably get my levels tested again soon. As I write this, I have been off of TRT for 12 months now.
I leaned more heavily on caffeine while I was coming off of TRT. My current levels are around 400mg per day. But tapering off is my primary focus. Or maybe I should try cold turkey again? Not sure how I can afford to be a useless zombie for weeks while I have a full time job and 2 kids to look after.
“Semen retention” and NoFap
For years, I had made half ass attempts at doing No Fap and quitting porn. The benefits claimed by people who have tried it are:
- Increased energy
- Vigor
- Willpower
- Can function on less sleep
- Increased confidence
- Better focus and concentration
- Muscle growth
- Increased Libido
I started to read some books about the topic. This big two were “Your Brain on Porn” and “Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow”. These books took a more Science-based approach. There were also a couple books that were a little off tilt such as “Bliss of the Celibate” and “Why You Should Never Masturbate”. These books included a lot of hokey about chakras and religion.
I never made it passed two weeks.
After TRT, I decided to give it a real go. NoFap/ Semen retention felt like my final try at getting an “edge”. I lasted over a month. Just around the 3 week mark, I had felt the same benefits of TRT without all of the negatives. I also learned, that you have to be all in.
Any sexual thoughts had to be banished. Just think of something else. If you entertain lust at all, you will fail. Stay off social media where you may run into soft porn, which can start the spiral that leads you to porn, etc.
I was able to control my caffeine intake finally, my sleep was better, my wife was more attracted to me, I was more patient with the kids. I finally found the answer.
But then, I relapsed. And lost sight of the benefits. I had forgotten.
Slowly everything started slipping again. With small nofap stints here and there never lasting more than two weeks.
As I write this, I am realizing that caffeine was never my problem. It was a symptom of something else. I am currently on day 6 of retention and have made it my number one priority again. I need to remember this. I need my edge back.
The journey continues..
Life is full of ups and downs. And decisions you make (good or bad) compound over time. I know all of the positive effort, and commitment to personal development has paid off over time. Even though it may have been slower than I had hoped.
This story leaves out a lot. But I’d love to have a conversation with anyone who has had similar struggles. I have been going at this alone. I can only imagine how much more growth there can be surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals.
Ta Ta for Now.